New Beginners Article - TV In Your Motorhome

[Jim]

This week's beginners tip is about TV in your motorhome. How do you get it, do you really need a TV and how that referendum is bringing Satellite TV back from the dead. Here

 

[Suzukikettle]

Who would you recommend to use as a wifi provider Jim my motorhome has been supplied with a Huawei E5577C router and a Smarty sim installed

 

[Carpmart]

Who would you recommend to use as a wifi provider Jim my motorhome has been supplied with a Huawei E5577C router and a Smarty sim installed

UK is easy, just whatever deal you choose to use based on the amount of data you need.

For Europe, Tiekom are excellent and a great choice for high volume EU roaming. 300Gb is less than €45 on a rolling one month contract. Search ‘Tiekom’ in the search bar for an extensive thread.

For lower usage in EU, Popit 100Gb per month for £25 is a reasonable option. Also can be used for upto 6 months extended touring.

Other than that, you can do the ‘fair usage shuffle policy shuffle’ and play around with a few Gb here and there, hope you avoid breaching limits and useage policies…

Finally there is the local SIM card approach.

 

[Suzukikettle]

Cheers much appreciated

 

[Lenny HB]

I have a cheap Snipe satellite dish, was thinking of fitting one to the new van when it comes but they have now doubled in price, that will buy a lot of data, so I won't bother.
Also have an Android TV box that I download loads of stuff to before we go away.

For those that aren't aware with digital terrestrial TV when in another country any program that is British or American in origin you can turn off the dubbing and have the original English soundtrack.

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[treeker]

These things LEADSIGN Portable Indoor/Outdoor TV Aerial with Magnetic Base,High Gain Digital Antenna for VHF/UHF Signals(White) https://amzn.eu/d/hX5zO36 are an incredible £12 (£8 when I bought mine 2 years ago) alternative to the broomstick aerial. Looking at it you might think that it had some other purpose.... But it is a brilliant DVB-T aerial which has always given me a good signal in the UK. Even HD channels. It's magnetic so easy to put on a panel van roof. On my plastic van I siliconed a piece of UPVC trim to it, and use double-sided suckers to attach it to the roof.

 

[Stealaway]

Many cheap Smart 230V TV (& soundbars) are available if you install an inverter --- even if its just for the TV.

 

[diddydave]

With the magnetic aerials I guess you could silicone a piece of metal on the plastic roof for it to stick to

 

[dunnah01]

We have a selection:
1. Maxview amplified aerial for live Freeview in the UK,
2. Crystop Autosat 2 for live UK TV in France and into Germany & Spain
3. Firestick see with an older Trscomobike SIM for catch-up telly in the UK and streaming live UK TV outside of the sat footprint in Europe(or if it's too windy for the satellite)
All run via an HDMI splitter to a cheapo Manta 22" 12/240V TV.
Pretty much all bases covered but roaming data is probably going to be capped eventually. Used 150Gb in France in June this year no probs but still expecting a $h1togram from Trscomobile to say roaming is restricted to the same as the latest SIM deals

 

[Michael Rennison]

We used a combo of Satellite dish and O2 in France on the Avtex Smart Tv this September over 2 weeks. As Jim mentioned the 25gb limit (£12 per month and data rolled over so we had 30gb banked) is not brilliant. We used 20gb but were lucky in that the dish worked in both Dinan and Saint Palais sur Mer near Royan. It was O2 in Saumur. The £65 TP link 4g lite router from John Lewis was ace - displays the gb you are using on the screen and connects to several devices with a secure pin. Great bit of kit.

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[h8ten]

Who would you recommend to use as a wifi provider Jim my motorhome has been supplied with a Huawei E5577C router and a Smarty sim installed

I was in a similar position, a new van came with built-in MiFi and a Smarty sim but I did not want to sign up for a contract and I did not know how much data I would use so I bought Broken Link Removed from Argos. £50 for 120GB will last up to 12 months, once it expires you just buy another one (these can't be topped with an equivalent cost/data allowance).

 

[busby]

Used both Vodaphone,,limited me to 25 gb and ID sim 100gb for £7 after cashback in France and Spain in Sept Oct to watch TV using Firestick and phone as a hotspot...Used 40 gb of Vodaphone and over 200 gb of ID,,Managed to watch TV every time we needed it.Changing Vodaphone to Popit now..BUSBY.

 

[bexleyjohn]

Had an AVTEX router system fitted to my MH and have joined SMARTY - £20 a month unlimited data - works a treat with Amazon Firestick plugged into an Avtex TV ( not the new Smart version) so now have Internet TV, 85cm Satellite Dish and TV with DVD player. Often don’t use ANY as like to get out and about (weather permitting) but in the freezing cold (eg this week-end in Winchester) all eventualities covered. Pity the football outcome, but at least we were warm and happy!!!!!

 

[NoName]

I was in a similar position, a new van came with built-in MiFi and a Smarty sim but I did not want to sign up for a contract and I did not know how much data I would use so I bought Broken Link Removed from Argos. £50 for 120GB will last up to 12 months, once it expires you just buy another one (these can't be topped with an equivalent cost/data allowance).

With Smarty you don’t sign up to a contract. Use and unless you renew payment each month it stops . End of.

 

[Orion]

Many cheap Smart 230V TV (& soundbars) are available if you install an inverter --- even if its just for the TV.

There’s often no need to run a modern Smart TV from an inverter because they can be 19vDC units anyway. If they come with a 240vAC lead with an inline transformer chances are a 12vDC to 19vDC mobile laptop power supply unit that plugs into a ciggy socket will run it.

I’ve recently installed a 22 inch LG Smart TV/Monitor plus a Firestick and they’re both running perfectly.

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[wp1234]

TV

I have a cheap Snipe satellite dish, was thinking of fitting one to the new van when it comes but they have now doubled in price, that will buy a lot of data, so I won't bother.
Also have an Android TV box that I download loads of stuff to before we go away.

For those that aren't aware with digital terrestrial TV when in another country any program that is British or American in origin you can turn off the dubbing and have the original English soundtrack.

What’s an Andoid TV box Tia?

 

[kevenh]

For those that aren't aware with digital terrestrial TV when in another country any program that is British or American in origin you can turn off the dubbing and have the original English soundtrack.

Inside Europe, some broadcasters have multiple language tracks offered but still mostly the availability of the original language soundtrack depends on whether the local broadcaster adds a local language soundtrack or uses dubbing for a local language.

E.g. from Source

Europe Likes Dubbed Audio, Asia Prefers Subtitles

A quick bing: Quora: do all countries use subtitling?

Edit: if subtitles are used then the original language soundtrack is there. Dubbing replaces the original soundtrack with the local language version.

 

[Gellyneck]

I was in a similar position, a new van came with built-in MiFi and a Smarty sim but I did not want to sign up for a contract and I did not know how much data I would use so I bought Broken Link Removed from Argos. £50 for 120GB will last up to 12 months, once it expires you just buy another one (these can't be topped with an equivalent cost/data allowance).

You can monitor what data you have remaining and expiry date at Link Removed and best to do so as we just experienced an issue when in York last week where EE in their infinite wisdom suspended the sim after 180 days as we hadn't made a chargeable text or phone call!
Their local shop and Customer Support couldn't answer how you could do that from a data only sim and it shouldn't have happened!
Only took them 5 days to fix it!
Fortunately we had a 24Gb / 24 month 3 sim with us as well.

 

[h8ten]

You can monitor what data you have remaining and expiry date at Link Removed and best to do so as we just experienced an issue when in York last week where EE in their infinite wisdom suspended the sim after 180 days as we hadn't made a chargeable text or phone call!
Their local shop and Customer Support couldn't answer how you could do that from a data only sim and it shouldn't have happened!
Only took them 5 days to fix it!
Fortunately we had a 24Gb / 24 month 3 sim with us as well.

I was in a similar situation, not knowing you need to use it every 3 months to keep it active, fortunately, noticed when I wasn't away in the van. I was able to nip not my local shop and have it unsuspended. They advised me to fire it up, connect my phone to it and then do a quick web search to keep it active.

 

[ianrm]

I was in a similar position, a new van came with built-in MiFi and a Smarty sim but I did not want to sign up for a contract and I did not know how much data I would use so I bought Broken Link Removed from Argos. £50 for 120GB will last up to 12 months, once it expires you just buy another one (these can't be topped with an equivalent cost/data allowance).

Another totally unrelated post but I recognised your user name straight away from VX220.org

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[Suzukikettle]

Another totally unrelated post but I recognised your user name straight away from VX220.org

Cheers mate will look into this

 

[h8ten]

Another totally unrelated post but I recognised your user name straight away from VX220.org

Now you mention it I recognise yours too, I still have it 21 years and 9 months later.